40 SEAPORTS; MARITIME TRADE
"a mussoollee being overturned, although it was very
smooth water, and no surf, and one Englishman being
drowned, a Dutchman being with difficulty recovered, the
boatmen were seized and put in prison, one escaping."
The screw-pile pier at Madras was completed in 1862.
The stone commemorating the commencement of the
harbour was laid by the Prince of Wales (afterwards King
Edward VII) in 1875. The harbour, when completed, con-
sisted of two parallel masonry breakwaters, each 500 yards
distant from the pier, running out at right angles to the
shore for 1200 yards into 7^ fathoms of water, and bending
towards each other, so as to leave an opening 500 feet wide
in the centre of the east side for the ingress and egress of
ships. Quite recently, a new north-east entrance has been
made, and was first used, in the presence of the Viceroy, in
1909. The old east entrance, which was rapidly shallowing
owing to silting of sand, has since been permanently closed.
Proposals have long been under consideration for the
construction of a harbour at Vizagapatam, where the tidal
backwater is sheltered on the south by the headland of
Dolphin's Nose and the hills behind it, and on the other
side by distant hills. The conclusion arrived at by an
expert was that a groin from the end of Dolphin's Nose
would stop the formation of the sand-bar, produced by the
waves acting on the sand from the south, which stretches
across the entrance to the backwater. At Vizagapatam, a
Muhammadan saint is buried on the top of the hill over-
looking the backwater. He is considered to have great
power over the waters of the Bay of Bengal, and silver
dhonis (native vessels) are offered at his shrine by Hindu
shipowners after a successful voyage.
Proposals have also been under consideration to cut a
ship-canal through Pamban island, to obviate the necessity
of large steamers, which are making for ports along the east
coast, going out of their way round Ceylon. A channel